


a little room in an echoing heart

by mollivanders



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-31
Updated: 2010-12-31
Packaged: 2017-10-29 17:54:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/322562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mollivanders/pseuds/mollivanders
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s not until they’ve escaped Xenophilius Lovegood that Hermione starts talking to him again, properly, and Ron dares to smile at her, to crack a joke, and hope for a glimmer of a response.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a little room in an echoing heart

**Author's Note:**

> **Title: a little room in an echoing heart**  
>  Fandom: Harry Potter  
> Rating: G  
> Characters: Ron/Hermione  
> Author's Note: For the [Winter Wonderland of Fic](http://mollivanders.livejournal.com/221316.html). She requested something with Ron and Hermione. Word Count - 789.  
> Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Ron doesn’t expect Hermione to forgive him, not like Harry has. He knows how awful he felt after he left and can’t blame her for still wanting to hex him.

He catches her listening to him and Harry though, and he tries to tell them both things without her noticing he’s doing it. News of the outside world, whoever it comes from, is one of the things he knows she’s most desperate for. He tries to impart as much as he can without letting on he knows she’s listening, his ears burning red whenever she bursts in on the conversation.

But it’s not until they’ve escaped Xenophilius Lovegood that Hermione starts talking to him again, properly, and Ron dares to smile at her, to crack a joke, and hope for a glimmer of a response.

She must not be as mad as she pretends, not least because now she sits with him and Harry next to the wireless and offers suggestions for what the password might be – _Godric, Mad-Eye, Albus, James, Snitch, Fawkes_.

“The trouble is,” he explains very carefully so she doesn’t bite his head off, “is it has to be something people who support Harry – not just the Order – would know, and things a Death Eater won’t guess.”

Ron’s not at all surprised when she then suggests _Dobby_ as a password and he grins, even though it doesn’t work, because it’s been too long since someone set a task for Hermione she couldn’t meet.

He’s standing guard-duty late in February (double-shift this time, having shoved Harry back into the tent with dark circles under his eyes) when just before dawn Hermione drops herself down next to him. Wordlessly, she shakes out a thick blanket he gratefully helps her pull across both their laps, even though the winter chill is already starting to lift.

“You’ve been full of ideas lately,” she says lightly and Ron stares at her half-compliment before remembering to answer. “Well, yeah…” he answers her. “We have to keep looking, don’t we?”

He’s still half-afraid she’ll bite his neck off, half-worried she’ll make some comment about how his opinions have changed since the fall, but she just tucks the blanket around them tighter, still watching the horizon.

“You don’t really think Dumbledore wanted us to go find the Hallows, do you?” she asks with that confident yet questioning tone only she can manage. Ron fidgets with the edge of the blanket, a lump in his coat brushing against his hand. “I think Harry wants to find them,” Ron hedges, “but if Horcruxes are hard to find, Hallows can’t be much easier.”

Hermione lapses into silence and Ron seizes the moment to say the thing he’s been wanting to say for weeks, months, ever since he came back.

“I shouldn’t have left you, Hermione.”

Her grip on the blanket tightens and she doesn’t look at him, but he plows forward, knowing it’s now or never.

“You asked me what else there could be, besides being sorry, and I shouldn’t have let it get to me. It didn’t get to you, it didn’t get to Harry. I should have held out a little longer, for both of you.” He stumbles over the words, rushing to get them out, and the silence that follows seems louder than a Howler.

But he notices then that Hermione’s breathing seems faster than normal. Even while she’s still not saying anything, a feat if he’s ever accomplished one, he feels her hand reach under the blanket to grip his wordlessly.

“Do you fancy a spot of breakfast?” she finally asks, quite calmly, and Ron remembers the lump in his pocket.

“I’ll try to find some bird’s eggs,” he tells her encouragingly, remembering her malediction about never making food. “And there’s this, I’ve been wanting to give it to you since...Christmas. It was your favorite, from what I remember.”

And he passes her the tube of spearmint toothpaste.

“How?” she asks, frozen in half-fold of the blanket, and Ron shrugs, hiding his hands back in his coat before they turn blue. “There’s a lot of abandoned places now,” he tells her, something she probably already knew. “Lots of unattended stores. And I left some change in the till,” he adds at her blush, not sure if she’s about to ask if he _stole_ , because honestly, some people have it worse than they do.

(He doubts it, but he’s not going to argue now.)

“What are they going to do with Sickles, Ron?” she says over a hint of a smile playing at her lips. “I’ll get the fire started while you’re gone.”

Ron’s still not sure if she’s ever going to forgive him (but he hopes, maybe, she already has).

_Finis_


End file.
